Voices from the Field

This “Voices from the Field” explores the potential advantages of shifting from a traditional leadership model focused on one person or a small cadre to one where authority is shared among all who do the work.

Pine Ridge has become one of the leading destinations for philanthropic work in Indian Country, especially among evangelical Christian churches and charities. Every spring comes a new crop of voluntourists and missionaries with their neocolonialist ways.

Today, the movement for universal Pre-K is highly prominent. But the movement did not appear overnight. Rather, it involved a decades-long effort that combined deep scientific research on brain development with communications and advocacy work.

Not without reason, we often approach algorithm-informed artificial intelligence with trepidation. But notwithstanding the real risks, AI correctly employed can save lives, as the story of a nonprofit crisis text line service illustrates.

As a series of reports from the First Nations Development Institute has documented, philanthropy has systemically underinvested in Native American communities. But why? One reason, suggests Institute vice president Raymond Foxworth, is that subconsciously philanthropy has often imbibed the same myths as has US society as a whole that marginalize American Indians.

FROM THE ARCHIVE: This account of the care needed when making a nonprofit acquisition in good faith is a positive but cautionary lesson for those considering these kinds of organization-changing affiliations.